Researchers at the Cooperative Research Centre on Biosciences, CIC bioGUNE, in collaboration with colleagues from the Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, have discovered a new biochemical method related with the LKB1, AMPK and eNOS genes, which regulate liver growth. The findings, published in the February issue of the prestigious scientific journal Hepatology, might open up new routes to understanding liver growth and cancer.

Regeneration capacity after serious tissue damage or surgery is a vital liver property. Given that extirpation of the liver is a habitually-used therapeutic procedure in cases of serious hepatic illnesses, it is important to know which underlying molecular processes exist in the regenerative process and how they can be regulated.

This study, led by José M Mato and M Luz Martínez-Chantar of CIC bioGUNE and Shelly Lu of the Keck School of Medicine, shows how interrupted activation of this new LKB1/AMPK/eNOS cascade causes abnormal hepatic regeneration. In order to research how this cascade regulates growth of hepatocytes (the main cells found in the liver), the researchers created cells without LKB1, AMPK or eNOS.

The study was financed by the American National Institutes of Health, the National R&D&I Plan, the On-line Biomedical Research Centre in the thematic field of Hepatic and Digestive Illnesses (CIBERehd) and the Basque Government’s Etortek strategic research programmes.